Tuesday, August 6, 2013

On being the only chick in business class

Yesterday I got upgraded on my flight to Boston. It doesn't happen often, so usually I'm one of the horde shuffling to the back of the plane, eyeing the lucky ones with legroom and free booze. And usually, at least on business routes (I'm sure flights to Hawaii are different), there is at most one woman in business class. And she is almost always clearly part of a couple. Maybe there's a quota.

On yesterday's flight, I was the token business class lady. It felt odd. When the agent called the first boarding group, I was standing in the half-line, half-scrum around the gate. Two men pushed right by me like it hadn't even occurred to them that I could be part of their group. Maybe they were just dicks who would have done the same had they been in the last boarding group instead of the first, but my assumption is that they figured I was part of the hoi polloi.

When the flight attendant came around to take dinner orders (because that is a thing that happens in business class - also, ice cream sundaes!), she asked each guy individually what he'd like to eat. "And you, sir? And you, sir?" When she got to my row, she addressed me and the guy next to me together: "And what will you two be having?" Aside from the fact that I was sitting next to him, there was no sign that we were traveling together - we hadn't even spoken. It was awkward.

Finally, the kicker: three hours into the flight, I used the business class restroom, and the rolls were still completely new, their ends glued down. Because everyone else had penises.

None of these things was malicious, or even really upsetting - just discomfiting. Where my business class ladies at?